Abstract
BackgroundBeing a mentor in any setting brings challenges in addition to recognised benefits. Working in a low-income country confers specific challenges including logistical and communication issues. The need to adequately support UK-based international health volunteers prior to, during and after their trip is recognised at government level. Whilst the need to support mentors is recognised little is known about their support needs. This study aims to explore the lived experience of mentorship in a low-income country and gain insight into mentors’ support and information needs and the barriers and facilitators to mentoring.MethodsPurposive sampling was used to recruit UK-employed, palliative care clinicians: four consultants, two specialty trainees, and two nurses, who were mentors with an international palliative care project. Semi-structured telephone interviews were recorded and analysed using interpretive phenomenological analysis.ResultsParticipants became mentors to help others. Uncertainty about their achievements constituted a significant challenge. This study highlights the need to prepare mentors before their in-country visits by exploring motivation, describing the reality of international volunteering and ensuring realistic expectations. Post-trip debriefing is important for reducing uncertainty around trip outcomes and maximising transferable impacts. Challenges to mentoring were logistical, related to the concept of mentorship and cultural. Facilitators included shared passion, mentor credibility and serendipity.ConclusionAwareness of the support needs of mentors and the facilitators and challenges to mentoring can improve mentor preparation and support. This may minimise potential negative emotional impact of being a mentor, maximise positive personal and professional impacts and improve in-country project impact.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12904-016-0164-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Being a mentor in any setting brings challenges in addition to recognised benefits
Stress and frustration have all been identified as major challenges to mentoring [7, 10] Mentors can find ‘being a mentor’
It is likely that the roles of international mentor and international health volunteer overlap
Summary
Being a mentor in any setting brings challenges in addition to recognised benefits. Working in a lowincome country confers specific challenges including logistical and communication issues. Published studies exist exploring the impact of international health volunteering, including a 2015 qualitative study exploring the personal value of being involved in a project supporting a palliative care degree programme in Uganda [13]. These studies cite a range of personal and professional benefits to international volunteering and mentorship encompassing teaching, management, leadership clinical skills and personal growth [13,14,15,16]. (Leng, personal communication) Challenges included: cultural and language differences; communication, logistical and resource issues; personal financial and family considerations; lack of work place support; finding an appropriate role and professional relevance [14, 15], (Leng, personal communication) Additional challenges linked to working as an international volunteer have been indentified with further insight available from an unpublished survey of 41 international PC volunteers. (Leng, personal communication) Challenges included: cultural and language differences; communication, logistical and resource issues; personal financial and family considerations; lack of work place support; finding an appropriate role and professional relevance [14, 15], (Leng, personal communication)
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